Previously
by valeriange
Summary: It was Barnaby who was dying, but all Kotetsu could think about was Tomoe.


None of them could have seen it coming. It had seemed like the single terrorist who had stormed into the Justice Building had been just as normal as any of the people he took hostage, and the gun he held in his hand was a typical black rifle. No one had given a second thought to Barnaby, with his bullet-proof armor, going in solo to stop him, and Agnes said it would make for a great ratings boost for the young hero following his and Kotetsu's reinstatement into the First League.

Kotetsu had made his way into the camera van that followed the two of them to watch it play out. He saw, in horrifying HD quality, as the terrorist turned toward Barnaby and stretched out the arm holding the gun. As the camera zoomed in dramatically, Kotetsu saw the unfamiliar make of the weapon and knew instantly that it was no typical rifle like what was reported; he remembered instead the weight of H-01 in his arms, the destruction of the battle around them, his calamitous gun in Barnaby's hands. He remembered the searing heat and the way the shot crumpled H-01's armor, along with his own. He was shielded from the direct shot and barely survived.

He pulled the trigger. One shot. Barnaby fell to the ground.

Kotetsu didn't remember the journey from the camera van into the Justice Building, but he found himself gently picking up Barnaby's body, while Blue Rose and Fire Emblem entered the building just behind him. The terrorist seemed just as shocked at the results of the shot as they did, and one wave of ice from Blue Rose trapped him to the floor and knocked the gun from his hand.

He didn't know how long it had been before an EMT tried to take Barnaby from his arms. All he saw were hands on Barnaby and the gentle tug of someone attempting to remove him from his grasp, and then – apparently – the EMT ended up six feet away cradling an arm that had almost been broken.

A compromise was made quietly, wordlessly, and Kotetsu was in the back of a screaming ambulance with Barnaby as they hooked him up to all sorts of machines and wrenched the smoldering, shattered remains of his armor off his body. The hospital seemed alarmingly quiet following that debacle.

And then Barnaby was gone, whisked away into an OR, and Kotetsu was alone in a pristine white hallway. His ears were ringing. He didn't think he could feel his legs. He wasn't able to move, just stare at the door Barnaby disappeared behind.

Agnes stormed up to him first, having not been far away from the hospital and, unlike the Heroes, not caught up in dealing with the terrorist. At first, she was furious, fuming about Kotetsu's treatment of the emergency worker, storming about how he could press charges. Kotetsu didn't hear anything specific, just her irate voice in the otherwise muted quiet of the hall.

A moment later, she stopped suddenly. "I'm sorry," she said, "about Mr. Brooks."

Kotetsu remembered where he had seen this scene before, where he had heard those words before. He was standing in another pristine white hall, outside another door, with his wife hooked up to machines on the other side and two doctors at her side. His brother, ever so silent, stood solemnly at his side then, his arms crossed as he looked in through the window at Tomoe. "I'm sorry," he had said, "about Tomoe."

"Kotetsu?"

Kaede had cried so hard the first night Tomoe wasn't there. She didn't understand, and he couldn't exactly explain it carefully to a four-year-old that her mother was dying, was too sick to even come home anymore. Some of her earliest memories would be that hospital. Pristine white halls.

Tomoe and Barnaby, both so convicted in him staying a Hero, despite what it did to them. He could have been there for her. He should have been there for Barnaby. Even as a Hero, he couldn't save them.

Agnes left at some point. Kotetsu didn't know when.

He made good friends with the nurses at Tomoe's hospital. Some of them would bring him a pillow when they noticed he didn't plan on leaving Tomoe's bedside any time soon. The nurse assigned to Tomoe brought them flowers twice – once when Tomoe's diagnosis worsened, and once again when Kotetsu was gathering up her things to take home, without her. He still had the vases.

Antonio came in next. "You're blocking the hallway," he said gruffly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "You should sit down."

"I should be with him," Kotetsu murmured.

Barnaby was dying, and all Kotetsu could think about was his absence for Tomoe. He had to do better now.

Antonio put a hand on his shoulder and guided him over to a set of chairs further down the hall. Kotetsu let him. He couldn't feel his legs moving with every step, nor did his eyes process the passersby who did nothing but give him curious or sad looks. He and Antonio sat down.

"Look," said Antonio slowly, "Barnaby isn't Tomoe."

"I wasn't there."

"Barnaby isn't Tomoe."

"I have to be there for him."

"Barnaby isn't–"

Kaede would cry again. She was used to Barnaby now; they had been on trips to blatant tourist traps; he had made her breakfast and lunch and dinner and tucked her in when Kotetsu wasn't there and escorted her to her first school dance alongside him. Kotetsu thought she was finally beginning to see him as something close to a parental figure; she couldn't lose another one. Not when they had finally started to be a family together.

"I can't do this again," Kotetsu told him.

He recovered once. He already got his second chance. There would be no one after Tomoe and Barnaby. He couldn't do this all over again, with the baggage of two deaths hanging over him.

Antonio didn't say anything, just put a hand on his shoulder as he slumped forward in the seat.

Blue Rose came by, dressed in her civilian clothes, and so did Fire Emblem and Sky High. None of them said anything. They asked Antonio for the status on Barnaby, and all Antonio did was shake his head or shrug his shoulders or give some other noncommittal gesture. Eventually, people stopped coming over to ask, and Kotetsu was grateful, even though his eyes were closed, and his body was slouched forward and none of them would bother him personally.

A nurse stepped toward him, though, dressed in pale blue scrubs. "Kotetsu Kaburagi?"

"That's him." Antonio pointed, then stood up and shuffled out of the way, allowing the nurse to sit down next to Kotetsu. He looked up at her.

"You're Mr. Brooks' emergency contact," she said.

 _You're_. You _are_. Not were. Not past tense. Kotetsu felt his heart begin to race a little faster – finally, he felt something close to human again.

"Mr. Brooks is out of surgery," she told him. She continued to explain his condition after that, about his treatment plan and his recovery time, but Kotetsu's ears were ringing and his heart was thundering and he couldn't hear any of it. Bunny was alive. Bunny was alive and well and – perhaps not _well_ , per se – but he was still here. He wasn't gone. He would come home. He would take Kaede to another dance and make them both breakfast and—

"I need to see him." Kotetsu realized, after he had spoken, that he had interrupted her. The nurse paused for a moment, but then nodded and stood up. Kotetsu all but leapt to his feet to follow after her.

She led him to a room on what felt like the other side of the hospital. Every turn they took, Kotetsu found himself looking to see Barnaby sitting up and smiling charmingly at a young nurse. Every door they came up to, Kotetsu waited to see her open, only to be disappointed each time.

When they finally did enter his room, Kotetsu found Barnaby laying out on a bed, an oxygen machine hooked around his face and bandages swathed thickly around his chest, but sleeping soundly – or at least passed out on the meds. Someone had tied his hair away from his face, but strands still fell loose and stuck to his face. He didn't flinch when the door shut, nor did his eyes flutter open or his body give some other sign that he noticed anything had happened.

Tomoe had looked much the same – her hair tied back, her skin sallow and thin and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, strands of black hair sticking to her cheeks. In her later days, she had had the oxygen mask around her face too sometimes.

But she never had bandages around her.

Barnaby was not Tomoe. He would not be a repeat of what happened. He would not have to say goodbye to Barnaby now the way he did to Tomoe.


End file.
